Windows Is Changing How It Takes Screenshots, for Better or Worse

Andrew Heinzman
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Andrew is the News Editor for Review Geek, where he covers breaking stories and manages the news team. He joined Life Savvy Media as a freelance writer in 2018 and has experience in a number of topics, including mobile hardware, audio, and IoT. Read more...

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Apr 11, 2023, 12:21 pm EDT | 1 min read

Computer running Windows — Hannah Stryker / Review Geek

Taking a screenshot in Windows is a simple (but somewhat outdated) process. So, in what might be a controversial change, Microsoft is testing new screenshot behavior in Windows 11—pressing the Print Screen (PrtScn) key will open the Snipping Tool, rather than copying a screenshot to your clipboard.

This change was spotted by Windows Latest in the Windows 11 22624.1546 Beta build (it’s also in the 22621.1546 Preview build). For what it’s worth, users can revert back to the traditional Print Screen functionality from the Accessibility settings.

Honestly, the traditional Print Screen process in Windows isn’t very user-friendly. If you press the Print Screen key, you need to find somewhere to paste your screenshot. Yes—you can hold the Windows key when pressing Print Screen to automatically save a screenshot to the Photos folder, but novice users rarely learn about this functionality.

Snipping Tool on Windows 11 Can Now Record Your Screen

Microsoft’s Snipping Tool is fairly intuitive, and importantly, it allows you to crop or edit a screenshot without any additional apps. So, using the Print Screen key to trigger Snipping Tool just makes sense. Some people will complain, but most people won’t.

Snipping tool can also record your screen—a task that’s grown more common thanks to remote work. That said, this app has also been subject to some security vulnerabilities.

To be crystal clear, Microsoft is testing this new screenshot behavior in Windows 11’s Beta and Preview builds. The company could abandon this idea at any time. And even if the new screenshot behavior becomes the default for Windows 11, it may not reach Windows 10. (By the way, you can set up keyboard shortcuts for Snipping Tool in Windows 10 and 11.)